A practical checklist for screen readers

It comes up on almost every project, usually later than it should. Run through this the next time screen readers comes up.

The cost of retrofitting accessibility is several times the cost of building it in. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.

The checklist

• Test with one and the theory becomes obvious
• Correct markup does most of the work
• Announced changes need live regions
• Someone is named as the owner
• There is a date to review it again

What it costs to ignore

Test with one and the theory becomes obvious. Small and consistent beats large and occasional here. The failure mode is not doing it wrong, it is doing it once and assuming it stays done.

What this looks like day to day

Most of it is correctness rather than charity: use the right element and much of it happens automatically. Three things worth confirming about screen readers before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Correct markup does most of the work — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

The point is not perfection, it is knowing which of these you have consciously chosen to skip.